Night Song (The Guild Wars Book 9) by Mark Wandrey (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📕

“Score!” the onnogo yelled.

Every Zuul in the room stared at Shadow with their jaws hanging open in shock as his siblings whooped and hollered. Shadow just smiled.

* * *

Makori caught Rex and checked his arm. Rex stared at the limb and knew it wasn’t quite right.

“Veska,” Makori barked, and a female Zuul floated over. “This arm is broken.”

“He purposely sped up,” she said. Makori cocked his head and she sighed. “I accept responsibility,” she said and held out her arm.

“No,” Rex snapped as Makori raised a baton with obvious intent.

“Do you forgo leveling?” Makori asked. The older Zuul saw the look on Rex’s face. “Leveling means equal hurt for unnecessary injury.”

“Yes, I forgo,” Rex said. Makori nodded and holstered the baton. A cheer went up among the assembled Zuul. Rex smiled; it would seem he’d done right. He caught Shadow’s gaze and gave his brother a thumbs up.

“Dardy move, bro!”

Shadow smiled and gave the thumbs up back. “Piece of piss!”

Later in a chamber on the ship that served as a sort of club, a crowd of Zuul drank and laughed, welcoming Rex and his siblings as…what? Not quite equals, surely. But they weren’t outsiders anymore. It felt good, and the Zuul drinks felt even better. A medic had given him a low-level nanite shot, and his arm was fine.

Sometime later, approaching when they were due back in their quarters, the female who’d broken his arm, Veska, appeared out of nowhere. She gave him a crooked smile, baring her curving canines in a way that shot a thrill through him.

“Lucky shot, new pup,” Veska said. Her smell was…delicious. Then she nipped his muzzle, and was gone. Later, in his bunk, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“No wanking over Veska,” Drake whispered from the next bunk.

“Piss off, shark biscuit,” Rex replied. Drake chuckled, rolling over. Rex sighed and slowly drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Alan put his slate away and shrugged. A second later, he also sighed. The kids were spending a lot of time with the Zuul, as he’d suspected they would. They’d sparred with the alien mercs and were having individual learning sessions with their…what? Witch doctor? He didn’t get it, and got the impression from his kids they didn’t get it, either. Shadow was in heaven, as he was with all things hinting at mythology.

For his part, Alan and Tucker spent most of their time with Teef, the commander of Insho’Ze, and A’kef, whom Alan guessed was their business manager. There were a lot of details to work out for potential orders of battle, as well as responsibilities, should they encounter combat. Considering both had missing combat teams, that seemed highly likely.

Teef seemed more than willing to allow Silent Night to play to its strengths as a Human merc unit—hit hard and fast in the face of even heavy opposition. It only made sense, since they had CASPers, and the Zuul didn’t. The problem was, A’kef kept asking questions about the powered armor.

“Since they’ve been modified for Zuul, does this mean they’ll be available?”

He’d put off an answer to the question. Of course, the only reason they existed at all was because a representative at Binnig had done Alan a personal favor. It was supposed to be a low-profile deal, without Silent Night flashing them around for the press to see. For that matter, it wasn’t widely-held knowledge on Earth that five Zuul pups had spent the last 14 years in Australia.

He was even more nervous when he saw the news report just before leaving. The Veetanho had tried to kill Jim Cartwright shortly after the formation of the Terran Federation. Apparently the rats had a group of killers operating undercover after the Peacemaker-enforced ceasefire, trying to undermine efforts on Earth to stabilize its government. Alan was sure the aliens hadn’t done themselves any favors.

The bad part was, it had created a groundswell of alien resentment. There were untold thousands of aliens marooned on Earth and many wanted to stay. He would have thought, before the war, that it would have been possible. Even in Australia, alien rights had made great strides. He was afraid everything would be set back decades, maybe even pre-first contact. How would his fellow Brisbanites think of his children after all that? Guess I’ll find out when we get home.

“Prepare for hyperspace emergence in one minute.” His translator rendered Zuul into English for him. It was full of guttural stops and strange hesitations. It was difficult for Human mouths to manage. Of course, the kids were managing just fine. Every time he’d seen them over the last week, they’d been trying out more and more of the language. Alan even picked up a few words himself, which pleased his kids to no end.

The sudden sensation of falling, despite already being in freefall, meant Paku was again in normal space, more than a thousand light years from Earth. Maybe we can finally get some answers.

* * * * *

Chapter 10

ZMS Paku, Klbood System, Cresht Region, Tolo Arm

Alan floated into the bridge of the Paku. The ship’s captain, a female Zuul named I’kik, glanced up as he entered then went back to examining the big central Tri-V. Unlike his own ship Starbright, the Zuul merc cruiser wasn’t commanded from a CIC, or combat information center. When he’d asked I’kik about it, pointing out the vulnerability of an exposed bridge, she’d responded deadpan, “Zuul aren’t as concerned about a perceived vulnerability as we are in being able to command with all our senses.”

Sounded like some of the Zen stuff he’d heard from a few Human merc units. What was that one American unit? Bjorn’s Berserkers? Their motto was ‘Valhalla Awaits.’ Fuck that, I’d rather piss on God and win.

He noticed A’kef floating to one